


new york winters are colder (without you)

by oikaiwas (unfinishedpages), tsukaishimas



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, I am so sorry, M/M, all i know is: pain, idek what this is, just pure angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29174757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfinishedpages/pseuds/oikaiwas, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukaishimas/pseuds/tsukaishimas
Summary: I’ll let you have the satisfaction of being correct all these years. You were right.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Kuroo Tetsurou
Kudos: 15





	new york winters are colder (without you)

**Author's Note:**

> hello !! idek what this is but it's a warm up for something bigger
> 
> i owe this to [oikaiwas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfinishedpages/pseuds/oikaiwas) because our late night brainrot led to this baby and its incoming sibling lol
> 
> @ me on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/tsukaishimas)

**15th Jan**

Tetsuro,

Do you remember that one night from our time in university? The night I stayed over at yours for the first time and we were talking about our dreams and our 10-year plans in your tiny, single bed? That night, I told you I wanted to go to New York sometime in the far future. There, in the peaceful space, I painted you an image of my dream: a loft in a brownstone building, jotting ideas and words down on a Moleskine, maybe even walking to work while munching on a bagel from a deli near the station. (I don’t even like bagels, but it added to the vision.) Do you remember what you told me?

You said that winters in New York are a lot colder, all the more if I went here without you. Could I handle it? You kept saying it, again and again through the years that we spent together. It was often said teasingly, rarely with any bite or venom or ill intention—even by the second time around. You liked to jokingly insist that winters in New York were colder. Most especially without you.

But until our last car ride together, in the quiet of your sedan, it was different. I waited for the punchline, the one where you’d follow it up with  _ ‘All the more without me.’  _ It didn’t come. In that car ride, you didn’t nudge me with your elbow or look at me with cocky eyebrows. There was no insufferable smirk on your face. Just hazel eyes focusing on the expressway, knuckles white from gripping the wheel tightly. Was that you finally admitting defeat? Did you finally,  _ finally, _ acknowledge that this is our end, that perhaps  _ ‘third time’s the charm’ _ will never work on us?

I would’ve preferred that you were baiting me to assure you that I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, that these dreams and images in my head are to stay that way, just like that night in your bed. It started like that; what was used for simple teasing ended up being the one phrase we used to delude each other that we were two puzzle pieces that fit together nicely. It didn’t surprise me, though, that we ignored the view of our merged road forking at the end of the route until we actually got there, because as much as I wanted to go to New York and build a new life, it always meant having to leave you. And I got to a point where I loved you so much that I didn’t even want to think that it was a choice I had to make.

But things change. People change. Yet my dreams didn’t.

Let me ask you, though, in between the years we spent ignoring the timebomb that was our end— did you ever imagine a future for us? A future that didn’t involve a brownstone building in the heart of a different city miles away from home, but a future in a quiet little flat hidden in the edge between the city and the suburbs? 

Perhaps we would’ve gotten that coffee maker we’d longingly stare at while we walked mindlessly around the department store. Maybe we would’ve finally adopted a scottish fold kitten and you’d protect it with your life, like what you did with mine and what I did with yours. We would’ve had a family, something small and different, yet something uniquely  _ ours _ , all warmth and love—a future starkly different from my present of bitingly cold New York winters.

I’ll let you have the satisfaction of being correct all these years. You were right. These days are a lot colder without you here. Scorching hot coffee cups burn my lips at every sip and the heating in my place doesn’t do its job the moment the temperature goes below zero. I’ve spent my third winter here but everything is the same. Freezing. Biting. Painful.

This letter is the most I can do to indulge myself, because while I’m here dreaming of a different life with you in the reality I’ve wanted so badly, you’ve built a life of your own. One without me. One in a home you made with someone else, with a different cat whose nine lives you’d protect with yours. One where you don’t have to ignore blaring signs, one without the fork in the road. Just a life with a beautiful cobblestone path that leads to the reality you deserve.

  
  


Whishing you all the best,

Keiji

**Author's Note:**

> the letter is not dated properly for a reason
> 
> .
> 
> maybe because it's not sent.


End file.
